100 pushups - a challenge started!

Push back the following six weeks on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. I will do my workouts at work, and that is why I have brought to the workplace sweat shirt and sleeveless Topi. No need to sweat ordinary working clothes and whip out kanssael?jien hajunystyr?it?, if a few drops of your workout progresses from the forehead is pressed. Shared joy is a multiple, so I have half forcibly recruited to the challenge of my colleagues. I wonder how many will remain alongside until the end?Aion

I got the first test, only a shame for two and a half pushups. How embarrassing, but the best starting point to determine whether a training program for the promise of really true. However, I reserve myself the right to change the style of men, women, push-ups, because the mind is a creeping suspicion of too big a piece of haukkaamisesta. The initial test because it felt surprisingly heavy. Muscles do not hurt, but they simply do not have the strength to push the carcass up! After a few painful puserruksen nothing happened. Once and for all.

I am a hundred push-ups site, the lowest caste. As I promised. Hauisten farm is probably satisfied in fat and a couple of paper-thin thread memory of life, then practiced sports. So I am one of less than five punnertaviin and club now has six weeks under the title of progressive training. I will not even take a look at what the advance is made in the next lesson, I do not needlessly harass me. It has been a kerralle then the surprise!

The Queue: Here, have another cat

Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today.

The comments of The Queue yesterday wanted more cat pictures. So here's a cat. Specifically, it is Kelly Aarons' cat Alfrado.

Besides humans (which far and away need it the most), which race do you feel needs the graphic upgrade the most? And do you think this will finally - FINALLY - happen in 5.0? Considering all the gear assets they'll have to readjust for each race, it seems the longer they take, the more work they're gonna have to do. So the sooner the better, right?

Ugh. All of the original races need an overhaul. I don't think I can pick just once. Draenei and blood elves are still pretty cool, but all of the races that launched with vanilla WoW are not so good. With every new game that releases, it becomes a little harder for me to look at WoW's races, and I imagine it's even worse for new players. I'm going to be much more accepting of graphics I've been seeing for eight years than someone who has been playing, say ... an MMO like RIFT/Aion/TOR, or even a single player game like Skyrim. Those people are going to look at World of Warcraft's characters (and character creator) and go, "Really? This is what all the fuss is? Really?"

We're not looking for photorealism; we're just looking for ... better. The cartoony style is perfectly fine, but Warcraft right now is like watching cartoons from the '80s and '90s. They're not nearly as vivid as you remember them.

I love World of Warcraft, but I feel it needs to start putting up a serious fight to maintain its status as top dog in the MMO 'verse. Updating character models is just one thing the developers need to do. I think that many of us still playing WoW in 2012 are waiting for the developers to pull out a Hyper Beam, but they're Splash Attacking instead. I'm really eager to see what they're going to pull out for Mists of Pandaria.

... OK, fine, if I must pick one race that absolutely needs a redo, it's night elves. Holy crap, what is wrong with night elf males? They looked like horrific science experiments in 2004, and we're still looking at their mutant flipper hands eight years later. Destroy them. Destroy them all.

What exactly happened with Benedictus? I thought we found him out abou him turning trator during the alliance intro to twilight highlands- did Varian think it'd be funny not to tell Thrall that Benedictus had turned?

That quest chain never made it into the actual game. All of the sound files for that quest were recorded, Varian and Benedictus and the whole thing, but it was never actually implemented. The Alliance is given no indication of Benedictus' going traitor at all.

The Alliance's introduction to the Twilight Highlands is ... a little lackluster. We get a 24 reference, than Fargo Flintlocke flies us to the Twilight Highlands, where we discover the Horde has nearly destroyed our only foothold in the zone. That's it. The Horde's intro to the Twilight Highlands is much better and actually has some story relevance.

I've been farming MC on my hunter trying to get Thunderfury (2 years and no left binding, Geddon hates me) and I got the Eye of Sulfuras off Rag one run, My question is if I get the Sulfuron Hammer could I make the Legendary and get the achievement off it?

I wasn't sure, so I checked the Wowhead comments for Sulfuras. According to the comments over there, you'll only get the Feat of Strength if you can actually equip the item.

Like you, I also spent multiple years farming my second binding for Thunderfury. I finally gave up on it when transmogrification was announced. I'm not much of an achievement guy; I just wanted it to look cool.

We do not make the games edition

Sometimes, I get questions for Ask Massively that I just can't use, and not because they're questions to which the answer is just "I don't know," although I try to steer away from those as frequently as possible because it's such an unsatisfying answer. No, sometimes we get questions for which we're not even the right people to answer, period. You can ask me to put a feature in EverQuest II or to consider developing it, but I don't work on EverQuest II. Heck, I don't even play it.

This week's installment of Ask Massively has been pared down to the questions that I can actually answer, including answers about the potential audience of the upcoming WildStar and the future of Star Wars: The Old Republic as it pertains to allowing user-coded addons.

It's hard to say for sure one way or the other at the moment -- after all, the game still hasn't announced a definite beta date, much less given us a timetable for release and so forth. But I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the game will be marketed toward the same group as most MMOs these days, nicely overlapping with the majority of Massively's readership.

Who's going to be attracted? I'm guessing that it'll be mostly people in their late teens to early twenties, since the sense of humor and overall atmosphere doesn't seem quite right for a kid-oriented game. But as in most MMOs, I think we'll see a wide variance in overall appeal, and you'll meet people of all age brackets who play the game. More than that, we just don't know yet; ask again when there's a beta out and playable.

It was said shortly after the game's early access period started that the development team was hard at work improving the game for the future, and one of the areas specifically mentioned was UI customization. While that doesn't necessarily mean that addons will be allowed, it's certainly a strong hint in that direction.

My personal guess? Odds are good, but expect the options to be fairly limited. I don't think we'll ever quite see the plethora of addons we've seen for World of Warcraft, mostly due to limitations on what addons can do.

Former Lineage II artist returns to NCsoft for new MMO project

NCsoft's prodigal son has returned, and with him the hopes and dreams of the future of gaming. Well that might be a smidge melodramatic, but fans of the company's games certainly have a good reason to celebrate today as former Lineage II artist Juno Jeong has come back to the fold.

Jeong signed back on with NCsoft as of yesterday to be the art director of an unknown MMO project. This is a marked step up from his previous role in the company as a member of the character production team, and those who know Jeong's art style are already expressing excitement with his current role. Following his stint on Lineage II, Jeong worked for several other game companies including Gravity, NHN, and Npluto.

While speculation is swirling over the exact nature of the project to which he's been assigned, the most common assumptions are either that he's working on another Lineage or Aion title.

The next generation stands tall

Kate Gridley is accustomed to toiling many hours in her studio to produce some of the most stunning and realistic portraits you will ever lay your eyes upon.

It is usually a solitary endeavor, but Gridley these days has a dozen sets of eyes — of her own creation — that are following her every move. Those eyes are peering our from the portraits of 12 young men and women that Gridley is painting as part of a new exhibit titled, “Twelve: Oil Portraits of Emerging Adults.”

It’s an exhibit featuring a dozen energetic and enterprising young people from disparate backgrounds whose paths all led through Middlebury, en route to promising lives that figure to change the world for the better.

“Ultimately, these are young people who I feel good that the country and the world’s future is in their hands,” Gridley said.

“All of these kids have something interesting to say.”

It was while serving as a volunteer for the presidential campaign of Barack Obama in 2008 in Ohio that Gridley developed the inspiration for what would become “Twelve: Oil Portraits of Emerging Adults.”

“Our (campaign) field bosses were 19, 21, 22 and 23” years old, she recalled. “They were motivated, they had left school, they had left jobs, and they were running this wonderful ship out there … We discovered that we loved working for this motivated, energized group of young people.”

At the same time, Gridley said she and her husband and fellow campaign worker John Barstow realized they were getting older, and that their own children were the same age as their campaign bosses.

“At some point, the mantle gets handed to the next generation, and it felt good,” Gridley said.

Aside from being an election year, 2008 also ushered in a major recession that Gridley anticipated would have a significant impact on artists like herself. She considered the “Emerging Adults” project as an endeavor to sustain her artistically during the lean commission period she believed was coming.

“I thought, ‘Well, we’re going to have to tighten our belts and if I were in the position of having no portraits to paint on commission and if I were just painting them for myself — which is a very different feeling — who would I choose to paint?’” Gridley recalled. “I realized that what I really wanted to do was a set of portraits of young people who are 17 to 23.”

That age bracket now has a name, Gridley noted: “Emerging adults.”

As part of researching her budding project, Gridley connected with Middlebury College Psychology Professor Barbara Hofer, who teaches a course on the subject of emerging adults and their connections to family and technology. The two women chatted about that subject and Gridley’s artistic ideas. Hofer would later join an advisory board that Gridley set up to guide her project, which is gradually taking shape, brush stroke by brush stroke, in Gridley’s workshop. Once completed, the exhibit will consist of a set of 12 large oil portraits (each 30-by-60 inches) of emerging adults — seven males and five females — that Gridley took great care in selecting. Each subject is depicted standing in a three-quarter view to just below the knees.

The portraits will “speak” through digitally recorded testimonials that viewers of the exhibit will be able to access through their cell phones — which happen to be one of the essential networking tools for emerging adults.

Gridley’s 12 subjects are from many varied backgrounds but are all tied together by a common thread — her two sons, Angus and Charles, both of whom also fall into the emerging adults age bracket. The two sons will also be immortalized on canvas, with their portraits posted as the symbolic gateway to the featured 12.

“A lot of really interesting young people have paraded through John’s and my door,” Gridley said. “We know some of them very, very well. I decided to choose young people who had interesting stories to tell who were comfortable enough in their own skins to not be afraid to say what they believe in and say who their hopes are and what their dreams are, and who also have enough spine to get on out in the world and try things.”

Examples of some of her subjects — whom she lists simply by first name to protect their privacy — include:

Kamal, originally from East Harlem, who spent many summers at the Gridley/Barstow household as a Fresh Air Fund child. His family is Muslim. He escaped from a building near the World Trade Center during the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. He is now working his way through college.

Meg, from Cornwall, a lifelong Unitarian Universalist who wants to teach reproductive health in Africa. She is a journalist, actress, singer and activist.

Nathaniel, who left Middlebury to attend the United World College in Mostar, Bosnia. He is passionate about world issues, foreign languages, literature and theater.

Aubrey, a Middlebury College student from Botswana who speaks seven languages and is majoring in economics and theater.

“Each of these emerging adults has a unique voice,” Gridley wrote in her project narrative. “A diversity of religious and cultural beliefs, a range of sexual identities and orientations, socioeconomic status, work and travel experiences, failures and successes, family structures, and health issues are represented in this group.”

All of the subjects have come in to pose for their portraits, attired in casual clothing they would wear every day. And all have agreed to be interviewed, with assistance from National Public Radio Correspondent Anne Garrels and the Middlebury-based Vermont Community Foundation. The youths will speak about their personal aspirations as well as their hopes for society and the world.

Gridley has been tending to her emerging adults as time allows. The economy did not take as heavy a toll on her commissioned work as she had feared, so Gridley has had to multi-task on assignments. Some of those assignments have come in the wake of her being selected to paint former Gov. James Douglas’s official portrait. That portrait now hangs in the Statehouse. She is currently painting a portrait of U.S. District Court Judge William Sessions III, in honor of his work as chairman of the Federal Sentencing Commission. The painting will hang in the Federal Judiciary Building in Washington, D.C.

The goal, Gridley said, is to have the “Twelve” completed by Dec. 30, 2012. The exhibit will then go on tour for lengthy shows at the Wilson Museum of The Southern Vermont Art Center in Manchester and Burlington College, before ending up at the Jackson Gallery in Middlebury’s Town Hall Theater during the fall of 2014.

At the same time, Middlebury College and other local institutions will feature courses and/or parallel exhibits on the topic of emerging adults.

Gridley hopes the exhibit will also tour nationally. After that, the paintings will be for sale.

In the meantime, she continues to work diligently on the “Twelve” and has been writing grant applications to help underwrite her work and supplies. She recently received a $3,000 grant through the Vermont Community Foundation.

Tattoo shop opens near Lampasas

After months of searching for a location and spending thousands of dollars on renovations, Double Barrel Tattoos recently opened just outside the city limits.

Randy Garcia, manger of the shop, said he wanted to open a tattoo business in the city because "they don't have anything like that here."

"We were just throwing stuff around, ideas of different places to open," he said. "Not Killeen or Austin because they have so many. We finally decided on Lampasas, and people said it would be great; it's what Lampasas needs. People say there's nothing here."

Prior to settling at South U.S. Highway 183, Garcia spent about $10,000 in renovations on a building on Farm-to-Market 580, within the city limits, believing the lease was guaranteed. Then he got a letter from city officials.

denied the shop a special-use permit to open in a noncommercial business location. Several residents attended the council's mid-October meeting, which was held at a school cafeteria to accomodate the crowd interested in the controversial matter.

"We did the floors, the walls; we were ready to open up," said Garcia. "It was a huge setback for us. That was the majority of our budget for opening that shop."

"We heard about (our current location) through a Facebook friend," said Garcia. "I went knocking on doors and found the owner, who lives behind the building. He said a gentleman had been renting it from him, but had gotten sick. After a week he called us back to say the man wouldn't be able to continue paying rent."

Garcia signed a five-year lease within a week of the Facebook tip.

"The rent is perfect. It wasn't in too bad disrepair, so we wouldn't have to spend a whole lot of money on it. It's just perfect," said Garcia. "Mainly, it was location. It's right outside the city limits. The drive-by traffic is going to be great."

Besides acquiring a location, the tattoo shop also met several state standards before opening.

"We had to get a business license, then get a body piercing and tattoo license from the state, which requires following a lot of guidelines in the way the shop is set up," said Garcia. "Once we got the state license, we had to start getting approvals from the city. We had to get into a light industrial area, So we moved right outside the city limits so we didn't have to do City Council meetings."

Securing a state license, including paying the $1,600 fee, was something Garcia had to go through twice.

"It's address-based," he said. "We got our license at the last location, and when we found out we couldn't open there, we had to get a new license. We were trying to tell (the state) that we didn't actually open up there at the (previous) address, and we tried to get some kind of discount, but the state isn't too lenient. They did the best they could."

At the shop's State Highway 183 location, Garcia estimates he's spent about $13,000 on renovations and supplies, including required flooring, chairs and sterilization equipment. The shop will employ five people, including two apprentices. All tattoo artists have been professionally trained.

"A lot of people in Lampasas have been getting tattoos out of friends' garages, and doing it that way is not 100 percent sterile," said Garcia. "The chance of cross-contamination and blood-borne illness is high, and the artists who do it that way don't have a lot of experience. Do it here, and there's a guarantee that we've taken our blood-borne pathogens class. All needles are disposable and thrown away."

Shop staffers intend to take part in activities to benefit the community, after they get settled.

"Right now, we're just trying to open," said Terry Bruce, the shop's owner. "We're going to work with Blue Santa and have a toy collection box; we want to collect food for the local food pantry, too."

Working to help local charities and planning to collaborate with the school to offer face-painting for football games are all in an effort to work with the town and dispel assumptions about the inked-crowd.

"They frowned upon tattoo shops at first, and we're trying to tell them it's not like it was in the '60s and 70s with bikers and drugs," said Bruce. "We're trying to work with the city. If we help them, they'll help us."

Tidewell Embraces Creativity, Service

Tidewell Hospice offers hospice and end-of-life care in Bradenton and Sarasota, among other locations in the region.

How to help: Tidewell Hospice volunteers offer various types of support, including patient care, writing about legacies, running errands, food shopping and more, said Irene Henderson, administrative director of volunteer services.

"They provide respite for family members so that they can get away and have some time for themselves to recharge or attend special events," said David Glaser, director of Tidewell's communications. Volunteers sit vigil with patients who are actively dying. In short, we couldn’t do what we do without the support of our many dedicated volunteers."

There’s also a complementary services department where volunteers do expressive art projects, she said, which includes making CDs, DVDs, painting, or dictating stories so volunteers can write books or poetry for them.

“At Christmas time, we’ll make Christmas cards to give to their children or help make gifts,” Henderson said.

The program has pet therapy, humor (clowning), music, massage, reiki, horticulture therapy, aroma therapy and expressive arts, Glaser said.

"We have volunteers who help in our offices and provide administrative assistance. Volunteers serve as greeters in all seven of our hospice houses. We have many volunteers who visit patients in their homes, in nursing homes, assisted living facilities and hospice houses," he said.

All that requires supplies, which is where the need kicks in.

All those supplies — pens, colored pens, pencils, paper — we rely on donations of actual material or money for materials for the patients,” Henderson said. “Anything you can think of, our staff and volunteers can help make projects for our patients.”

These projects help distract patients from the problems they face, she said.

“They can say, ‘I forgot about my pain and nausea that I had for the last hour,’” Henderson said.

Oils and lotions are needed for caring touch and massage, she added.

Tidewell also has Tidewell Honors where the organization hosts pinning ceremonies to recognize veterans who are patients, she said.

For cash/check donations, put “Please donate to Complimentary Services” in the memo line to fund these programs, Henderson said.

Or send donations with attention to Irene Henderson to fund the volunteer programs and supplies. Envelopes are available at each site to submit donations, too.

The Hospice House has a Treasures Thrift Shop in Brandeton’s Pebbles Springs Plaza at 5917 Manatee Ave. W. The store funds Tidewell and patient programs as these extra programs do not receive Medicare or third-party payer funding, she said.

“We’re always looking for donations from dishes to clothes to furniture to books, CDs and jewelry,” she said.